The front door of a home and often other doors within the home are typically designed both to function for passage into and out of the home and also to present an attractive appearance to those visiting or passing by the home. It is known in the prior art to make such front doors out of wood or combinations of wood and glass, and also in some instances to make the front door out of iron or a combination of iron and glass. In other instances, the door is made of fiberglass or other synthetic materials but typically made to have the appearance of wood or iron. Sometimes the door is presented as a single door and sometimes double doors are provided at this decorative door location.
One problem often presented at the door location in many instances is that the decorative door is provided on a front side of the house which is otherwise not a particularly secure location, and yet it is desirable to allow ventilation through the door. Also, it is desirable to communicate safely with a visitor who comes up to the home without allowing the visitor access into the home. Furthermore, it is often desirable to have additional light in the space inside the home adjacent the large decorative door space, such as by providing a large amount of glass on the front door.
One technique for addressing the problem of ventilation through the front door, light passage through the front door and the opportunity to safely communicate with a visitor through the front door, is to form the front door with a main frame that pivots on hinges and then an insert within the main frame that separately opens within the door. One particular form of insert and associated door which has become popular in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries is an iron or steel door with a wrought iron central area insert with a second door pivotably mounted to the insert. Such doors are rather heavy, requiring a steel door frame to hold the weight of the door. The wrought iron insert has a fixed lattice of wrought iron which is both decorative and provides security when the insert is in an open orientation. An openable portion of the insert inboard of the fixed lattice includes a glass door. When this glass inner door is closed, light can still pass into the building. When the glass door is open, communication can happen safely through the wrought iron lattice and ventilation is provided. If desired, a screen can be provided inside of the wrought iron lattice so that flying insects are precluded while ventilating air can still pass through and communication can occur.
More recently, wrought iron inserts have been devised which can mount within a wooden door hanging on hinges mounted to a wooden door frame. Typically, such wrought iron inserts within wooden doors have not been as effective as wrought iron inserts within iron or steel doors. In particular, many such wrought iron inserts within wooden doors are not configured to be openable. Others have been difficult to install. Also, such inserts don't work on foam filled core doors, such as fiberglass doors or other doors with a hollow core or a core that is filled with a non-structural material.
With this invention, it is desirable to use an existing wooden door and keep the mounting of the existing wooden door the same as in the original installation, but merely cut a hole in the wooden door and hang the new wrought iron insert into the hole in the wooden (or fiberglass or other materials) door, and have the wrought iron insert provide all of the functionality of prior art wrought iron doors. Such a door would enjoy simplicity of installation and be sufficiently light weight to hang on the door within the existing traditional wooden door frame, while still providing all of the benefits of completely iron/steel doors which require the use of heavy steel door jambs.